


Trouble Is

by neontiger55



Category: White Collar
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Season/Series 05, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2018-05-15 23:38:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5804779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neontiger55/pseuds/neontiger55
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An FBI retreat comes at the worst possible time for Neal and Peter. Post 5x09.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've been out of fandom for a *very* long time so I apologise if 5x09 tags have been done to death. I've wanted to write a fic like this forever and this episode gave me the opportunity, seeing that none of the issues raised were ever actually dealt with. AU, though, theoretically it could fit into canon timeline with a bit of hand waving

 

 

The city was still drowsy as his taxi sailed down Seventh Avenue and Neal willed the traffic to close in around them. He’d left his apartment as late as possible and hadn’t corrected the driver when he’d turned left on Riverside, away from the Parkway and towards the congested heart of downtown. The car stunk of stale tobacco smoke and pine tree air freshener, and there were black scuff marks all over the fabric of the ceiling for which Neal couldn’t think of a reasonable explanation. Outside, the neon signatures of the bodegas were dulling in the strengthening sunlight as it crept through the valleys of the buildings. Doormen were coming off shift, cigarettes hanging between their lips as they headed out into the day. Shutters collapsing upwards. Delivery trucks parked, lights flashing.

Neal’s bag lay on the seat next to him, packed quickly but not carelessly. In the chaos of the past few months, the two week departmental retreat to New Hampshire had slipped his mind entirely. They had been issued with a list of recommended items weeks earlier but it was only last night that Neal had remembered it, discarded under a stack of art books on his dining table, ringed with red wine and coffee. He’d staged an unsuccessful protest against his attendance back when Bancroft - at Peter’s insistence - was pushing through the paperwork to allow him past the state line, the idea of living in close quarters with over two dozen federal agents very much resembling his own personal nightmare. But now, the way things stood between him and Peter, Neal couldn’t even begin to imagine how this would work. He had assumed that he would be placed on house arrest, or possibly assigned to another department until the team returned. Then, two days ago, Peter had sent him a text reminding him to be outside the bureau at 6am sharp Monday morning. He should have guessed Peter would never leave him that far out of reach.

The cabbie leaned on his horn and swerved around a bike messenger, causing the trinkets hanging from the rear-view mirror to swing out in a near horizontal line. Neal braced a hand against the smeared plexiglass and tried not to think about the many hours of driving that lay ahead. They were almost at Federal Plaza now and just about on time. The summer sun was already warm on his face, though the air streaming in through the driver’s window was still fresh and full of ozone. Neal closed his eyes and breathed deeply.

_You’re a criminal. You can’t help yourself._

The memory of their last conversation was still blurred with heat, but those words kept rising to the surface with the sharpness of a pinprick, reflexive and unwanted. Making a pot of coffee:  _you’re a criminal_. Walking Bugsy in Central Park:  _you’re a criminal_. Fixing his tie in the bathroom mirror:  _you’re a criminal_. Those words, or words like them, had been aimed at him plenty of times before, thrown around by many different people in different iterations and Neal had never cared about what any of them were really saying. But in Peter’s voice they had sounded startlingly derisive, diminishing in a way Neal hadn’t been prepared for. It was the ease with which they had formed that sucked the air from the room, as though they had been waiting on the tip of Peter’s tongue all this time. By now he would have thought that Peter, of all people, would have understood that things were never really that black and white, that Neal wasn’t precisely one thing or the other. Every fibre of his being was telling him to run. And maybe he would have, if the debt he owed were to anyone else but Curtis Hagen and the price wasn’t quite so high.

Eventually, his cab pulled up a few meters away from the federal building. Neal could see that everyone had already gathered on the sidewalk a little further down, loading a gleaming line of black government cars with bags and equipment. They all looked like they had raided their local REI, overdressed, in his opinion, for anything but an ascent of the north face of the Eiger.

Neal paid the driver and stepped out into the street, pausing briefly to compose himself. Peter was stood with Diana beside his car, chatting amiably as they checked items off on a clipboard. He was dressed casually in jeans and a polo shirt, his holster and shield conspicuously absent. He looked up as Neal approached, his expression sobering as he caught sight of him. “You’re late.”

“Good morning to you, too, Peter,” Neal said, keeping his tone light. “Traffic,” he shrugged, when Peter continued to look at him expectantly. Neal moved to throw his bag into the trunk of the car, but Peter stopped him.

“I need to check that.”

Neal blinked. “Check what?”

“It’s protocol for taking you out of state.” Peter gestured to Neal’s belongings. “I need to make sure you’re not carrying anything you shouldn’t be.”

Neal opened his mouth to argue, but immediately realized it wasn’t worth it. If this was the way Peter wanted to play the game, so be it. He handed his bag over, covering his indignation with a smile, and followed Peter and Diana into the lobby of the FBI building, through to a large security room where a disinterested guard was watching a flickering wall of CCTV screens.

Peter set Neal’s bag down on a table and unceremoniously dumped out its entire contents. He ran a hand around the inner surfaces, searching for pockets or items sewn into the base or lining (as if Neal would be so crass).

Diana raised an eyebrow as she sifted through Neal’s belongings. “All you’ve packed is designer clothes and...a flask of whisky?”

“All the essentials, right?” Neal flashed Diana a broad, self-satisfied grin.

“So these are going to help you when you’re lost halfway up a hiking trail?” she said, lips twitching as she held up his sketchpad and a Joan Didion novel.

Neal nodded solemnly. “Yes.” He pointed at a little bottle as it went rolling off table, clattering to the floor. “I did pack bug spray though, so - ”

Diana snorted. “Well, while you do your whole GQ Outdoor Special thing,“ she waved her hand in Neal’s general direction, at his grey v-neck t-shirt, dark jeans and leather boots, “the rest of us will be cool, dry, and enjoying full ankle support.”

Neal looked down at the clumpy hiking shoes Diana was wearing. “Yeah, no. It would never be worth it.”

Diana rolled her eyes and bent down to retrieve the bug spray from where it had landed somewhere under the table. Neal stole a furtive glance at Peter, who had now turned his attention to the contents of Neal’s toiletry bag, opening products and scanning the labels of his medications so intently it was as though he thought they were coded with some great secret. After four years in prison, Neal was used to this level of intrusion - and worse, of course - but he still had to focus to keep his chin tilted up, his shoulders loose and relaxed. The distance between him and Peter was palpable; he’d barely made eye contact with Neal since he’d arrived, his body language closed off and unreceptive. It was hard to get read on him. “Find any contraband toothpaste in there?” Neal asked, as Peter eventually set the bag aside, seemingly satisfied.

“Not yet.” He gestured for Neal to turn around. “Hands on the wall.”

Neal stilled in disbelief, increasingly irritated at Peter's power play. “Seriously, Peter, what do you think I’m gonna have on me? A Chagall? Two hundred cartons of imported cigarettes to hawk at the roadside when we stop for gas?” 

“It’s - “

“Protocol. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Wouldn’t want to go off book, would we?”

Peter looked at Neal sharply, his mouth a tight line. “Diana, could you - ?” Peter said, after a moment, gesturing for her to give them space.

Diana glanced at Neal briefly, then nodded. “Sure thing, Boss. I’ll see you outside.”

When she had closed the door, Peter caught Neal’s arm and pulled him further away from the security guard, towards the back of the room. “Look, you need to cool it with the attitude.”

Neal was incredulous. “ _My_ attitude?”

“This isn’t a joke, Neal. You need to start taking this seriously, your sentence, our deal, all of it. You need to realise that in the real world actions have consequences.” Peter let out a sharp breath, obviously trying to keep himself in check. “This trip is bad timing but we’re just gonna have to find a way to get through it.”

“Then why don’t I just stay here in New York? I’m a criminal, remember?” Neal said, squaring his shoulders, taking pleasure in throwing those words back. ”There’s no reason for me to go.”

Peter’s jaw was tense as he leaned in closer, voice quiet with anger. “Because I pushed hard for this to happen. Because I put my trust in you and my reputation on the line and I sure as hell don’t want to explain to the higher ups why I’ve had a sudden change of heart.” Peter was still holding Neal’s arm, but as soon as Neal glanced down he let go. “People will start asking questions.”

Neal let out an agitated breath and looked away. Peter might be a little over paranoid, but given recent events perhaps he had a point; it would look bad for them both if Peter backtracked on taking him out of the city and really Neal couldn’t afford to have his position within the bureau come under any further scrutiny, not after James, not now that he had Hagen breathing down his neck ready to upend everything.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do,” Peter said. “We’re gonna call a truce.”

“A truce?”

“We keep our personal differences out of the office. You show up on time, you do exactly what’s asked of you, you act professionally and you go home. You do that and we won’t have a problem.”

“Kind of like ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas’ only in reverse and much less fun?”

“I’m serious, Neal. I said things were going to change around here and I meant it. No more shortcuts, no more sleight of hand. You’re a ward of the state and for now you’re still my responsibility. So we do things right, got it?”

There was a heavy silence, the kind that opens up when an actor fluffs their line and the theatre stills, waiting nervously for them to deliver. Neal wasn’t sure how Peter’s proposal constituted a truce exactly, being that he himself would bear the brunt of the compromise, but he needed time to change the state of play, to figure out how to free himself of all his binds. Peter was still waiting, body curved forward, pressing for an answer; Neal nodded slowly, feigning a resigned kind of acceptance. “We do things right.”

Sometimes you had to fold to get a better hand.

 

*

 

They reached the house late in the afternoon, stepping out into balmy air, thick with the scent of pine trees that had been baking in the sun all day. The long drive had mellowed some of the tension, cooling it enough so that when Neal had moved to sit up front - carsick, his reflection pale and sweaty in the wing mirror - he and Peter had managed to exchange a few courteous words, eventually finding a restrained balance even if the animosity was still just inches beneath the surface. Neal had sat watching the light on his anklet flash green all the way out of the city and along mile after mile of highway, instinctively calculating the delicate, ever-shifting balance of time and distance needed to cut and run.

The house itself was a far cry from the basic cabin Neal been dreading: it was in fact two adjoining properties, set back from a long country road, perched above a lake in the foothills of the nearby mountains. The main house was substantial, it’s back terrace jutting out over the hillside. Trees pressed in from all sides, pinecones and dried needles dusting the paths and windowsills. There was a broad set of stairs winding up to the front entrance, which were surrounded by landscaped borders full of plants and rocks that had been carefully arranged so as to not look carefully arranged at all. The smaller building sat on the other side of the paved driveway, and looked to be a converted barn or outhouse. Cedar shakes, high ceilings and neutral but relatively expensive furnishings. It felt like someone’s home and Neal suspected that out of season it probably was.

Bancroft called everyone to gather in the living room of the main house - a large, open space that opened out to the back terrace - and started the process of assigning rooms. Bancroft, Peter, and the other lead agents, Jim Sanderson and Lorena Pérez (Organized Crime and Cybercrime, from what Neal could tell), had their own bedrooms on the first floor while the rest of them would be sharing three or four to a room, split between the main house and the smaller annex. It allayed some of Neal’s fears, knowing that at least they wouldn’t quite be living on top of one another, but he was still uneasy. His only comparable experience to living with more than one person for any length of time was prison and he was pretty sure the same survival techniques wouldn’t apply here (unless, he supposed, he channelled Martha Stewart and fashioned a shiv from the pot of decorative bamboo in the hallway).

Neal was assigned a room on the second floor with Jones and an agent from Organized Crime, Chris, who to Neal looked like an overgrown frat bro: early forties, messy blonde hair and a tall but stocky build, muscle that had softened from decades of office work. Neal smiled in response to the curt nod Chris gave him as their names were read out. As the briefing continued - rota of basic chores, activity timetable - Neal could feel the other agents scrutinising him, quick glances when they thought he wasn’t looking, like they were trying to find something, some signifier that marked him out as inherently different from them. It was the same kind of look he'd gotten when he'd first started at the bureau, whenever he'd make a joke or offer to go out for coffee, like they couldn't quite believe that he was capable of normal, everyday things. 

Agent Pérez took over once Bancroft was finished to talk about the main event of the trip, the Clearlake Trail Challenge. Neal had heard the challenge being mentioned around the office before, more commonly referred to as The Salmon Run. It was something of bureau legend, a scaled down version of the MIT Mystery Hunt and a gruelling race up two thousand feet of mountain thrown in for good measure. Neal took the information sheet he was given and perched on the edge of the couch, trying to hide his disinterest.

“You’ll find out who you’ll be paired with later in the week,” Pérez was saying. “Usually it will be people you haven’t interacted with very much, to promote bonding, or unity, or some other bullshit,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand, eliciting a laugh from the group.

Eventually, they broke off to settle in. Bancroft and a small group went out to buy groceries, while most headed out to the terrace to drink beer in the last remaining hours of sunshine. Neal stood alone in his bedroom upstairs suddenly feeling completely adrift. The past few months had been turbulent, feverish, as he’d tried to keep one step ahead of the chaos that was looming in the distance. But within it all had been a sense of urgency and purpose that he always thrived on, the kind that sharpened his focus to an absolute pinpoint. For now, there was only stillness. No cases, no crimes, no witnesses. No traffic, no car horns blaring, no crowds and no voices raised to cut above it all. It was the feeling of a climbing airplane losing speed, the sudden, dragging weight of mismatched momentum.

His skin was clammy. He could still feel the after effects of the car sickness: head aching, stomach unsettled, ground swaying imperceptibly. He pulled off his shirt and briefly considered just laying on the cool bed sheets for a while, but he knew if he was out of sight for any length of time someone would come looking for him. Grabbing his swim shorts, he quickly changed, threw on a clean t-shirt, and headed downstairs.

There was a narrow path beside the house that looked like it wound its way down through the trees to the lake, allowing Neal to slip out the kitchen side door and bypass the terrace entirely. He could hear the buzz of conversation from above as he started down the hillside, good-natured and relaxed, but the words were too indistinct to make out. There was the rumble of Jones’ voice, followed by a burst of laughter. A barbecue had been lit, a small plume of white smoke occasionally drifting over the balcony edge, sluggish in the heavy air. The path was steeper than it had first looked, loose with gravel and sand, and Neal slid and scrambled down the very last section, eventually emerging about eighty yards away from the house, right at the water’s edge. It was startlingly serene. Rocks and boulders protruded from the shallows, forming a spit that trailed out into the lake. He and Alex had once spent a summer in Antibes swimming out from their yacht to sunbathe in rocky inlets a little like this one, a packet of cigarettes and a bottle of wine held high above their heads, laughing so hard that they often drank half the ocean along the way. It felt like a lifetime ago. Neal carefully picked his way across to a flat rock at the very end of the spit. He undressed, leaving his shirt and sunglasses in a bundle. The water was much deeper here, at least nine or ten feet, but still crystalline, the sandy floor clearly visible. Neal took a deep breath of air - burning coal, hot pine, musty reeds - and dove into the lake.

The cold was a shock, his mind and body instantly awake. Neal waited until he had reached the bottom and struck out, coming out of the dive just enough so as to glide above the lake bed until his momentum was superseded by the push and pull of the currents. He surfaced for air, then slipped back under. He should check in with Mozzie soon to make sure the Hagen situation was still handled; he seemed to have gone to ground for the time being and though it made Neal nervous - silence was rarely a reassuring thing where men like Hagen were concerned - it was at least good timing. He’d texted Rebecca earlier to no reply, which wasn’t unusual, given the kind of people they both were. Neal cut deeper, lungs just starting to protest. At least Hagen was predictable in his own way. Peter was the unknown now, and Neal worried how this rift would play out when Hagen finally made his move. He knew he and Peter needed to resolve their differences, find a way to move past the trauma of the past few months, and _soon_ ; it would be impossible for Neal to protect either of them with a leash held this tight. But the way the resentment sat so heavily in his chest, like a constant, physical ache, he couldn’t imagine ever being free of it; worse, that same anger was reflected back at him every time Peter glanced his way.

After another minute, Neal pushed back up to the surface, drawing in a gasp of air. As he treaded water, he squinted through the low sun back towards the shore. The windows of the house blazed brightly, golden and red; behind, the mountains were fading to a dusty purple. Bancroft and the other agents had returned with supplies and the barbecue was now in full swing. A long table had been set up on the deck, plates and glasses stacked on one end.

“Yo, Caffrey!” Jones leaned against the railing and waved at him. “We were about to send out a search party!”

“Yeah, if this is an escape attempt it’s not one of your best,” Diana shouted, and Neal could just see the wry tilt of her head.

Neal laughed, giving a little shrug as if to say, _yeah, what can you do?_ He turned to swim back to shore, but out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Peter, sat at the far edge of the deck with a couple of other agents. Although his expression was relaxed, there was a stillness to his posture that belied him, and even from a distance it was clear that his gaze was entirely focused in Neal's direction. A few seconds later, Peter turned away.

 

*

 

Neal woke the next morning, momentarily disorientated. He stared blankly at the solid wooden beams criss-crossing an unfamiliar ceiling. It was early: the sun was still low in the sky, washing the walls of the living room with a soft yellow light. The lake, framed by the patio doors, was a silver coin. Neal sat up, realising he’d fallen asleep on the couch; his book lay on the floor, pages splayed out from where it had finally dropped from his hand.  He’d stayed up long after everyone else had turned in, desperate for breathing space and far too wired to sleep. June always called him a night owl whenever they would bump into each other in the hallway or the kitchen in the blackness of the small hours, which was her polite way of telling him he was an insomniac. 

Neal showered and dressed, deftly snagging his clothes from his bag that sat unpacked in the bedroom where Jones and Chris were sleeping soundly. The house was still quiet by the time Neal had made a pot of coffee, though he could hear occasional movement upstairs, the rattle of water in the pipes, the creaking of floorboards.

The buzzing of Neal’s cell phone broke into the silence, spinning around on the kitchen counter frantically like a bug trapped in a glass. It was Mozzie, finally answering his text from last night: _All quiet, Mon frer_ è _. I’ve got it covered. You just concentrate on watching out for snakes and ticks and bears and rabid -_

“You’re up early.”

Neal started, looking up to see Peter standing in the doorway. He was fully dressed, hair still slightly damp from the shower. There was something in his tone, Neal thought, the slightest hint of suspicion he hadn’t quite been able to mask. Neal shrugged. “Yeah, you know what they say, early bird at the FBI retreat and all that - ” he slipped his cell phone into his pocket. “Uh, there’s drip coffee - "

“So, no cappuccinos in the clouds today then.”

“Not today.” Neal smiled. “Just filter in the forest,” he said, rolling his eyes at his own bad joke. He turned away to fix Peter a cup, busying himself in the absence of anything else to say. He opened the fridge, searching for some milk.

“You took on board our conversation yesterday?” Peter asked, abruptly.

Neal tensed. “I did.” He turned to face Peter and just out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed the uncertainty in Peter’s face that hadn’t bled into his voice.

“Good,” Peter said, but he still looked preoccupied as he took the coffee Neal offered. He took a sip and eyed Neal over the rim. “Diana was right - you look more like you’re going for a stroll around the Upper West than anywhere else.” He nodded to Neal’s clothes when Neal looked at him blankly.

“Well, I haven’t exactly had much use for anything outdoorsy these past few years.” 

“No, I suppose not.” Peter nodded. There was a beat of awkward silence between them; the plants out on the terrace shimmered silently in the breeze. “You know the Marshals are still monitoring your data,” Peter said, glancing at Neal’s anklet, which was still just visible under the hem of his pants. “No radius, but they can still track it.”

“What would I do with two miles out here?” Neal said, with a surprised laugh. They’d gone over all of this months ago, back when Neal’s eligibility to travel was still in question. The unspoken problem had always been that the tracker and the radius didn’t really matter; this far out, the Marshal’s response time was nothing like five minutes.

Peter said nothing. He walked across the kitchen and opened up the terrace doors, taking his coffee and disappearing outside. Neal stood where he was, breathing in the cool, fresh air, and in that disquieting second it struck him that this was why Peter had brought him out here after all. Not to keep him close, but to see if he’d run.

 

*

 

“Today’s first activity is called _Two Truths and a Lie_ ,” said Dave, the team building ‘specialist’ the bureau had drafted in for the morning. He was in his early fifties, and had the air of someone who had made a lot of bank in the corporate world (something that was only really achieved, in Neal’s experience, by being less than a team player) before retiring to preach the ills of greed and capitalism.

They were all gathered on the back lawn, sat in the shade of the house, and had been split into small sub-groups; Neal was with Peter, Diana, and two agents from Cybercrime he hadn’t met before, Tom and Siobhan. They both looked a little straight-laced and officious, more at home behind a desk than out in the field.

“This is how it works: you’re each going to tell your group two truths and one lie. You then need to work out what you think is true and what isn’t. Off you go!”

“This is really doofy, but I’m still going to crush this,” Diana said, turning back to their group.

Neal squinted at her. “Is that your lie or - ?”

Peter caught Diana’s hand before she could punch Neal in the arm. “Who wants to start? Siobhan?”

Tom and Siobhan both looked hesitant, but came up with their answers after a little thought.

“The lies are that you have never been to Paris and that you don’t know how to sail a boat,” Neal said, instantly.

“You seem very sure,” Tom said, looking a little put out.

“You both have very obvious tells.”

“And they are?” Siobhan asked.

“You take a deeper breath just before you lie. And you,” Neal looked at Tom, “glance down to your left.”

"That's not really fair. You have a serious advantage," Tom said. 

Neal shrugged. "No more than anyone else. See, the thing is - "

"Okay - " Peter cut Neal off and began reeling off his answers:  _I can play the piano, I’ve never stolen anything, I can identify the flags of all the European countries;_  then Diana,  _I love daytime soaps, I was never suspended from school, I passed the New York Bar first time_.

“I was suspended from school,” Neal said, when it was his turn, riffing off Diana’s answers. “I spent fourteen hours lost in one of Borneo’s rainforests and I once sunk a yacht.”

Diana took a swig from her water bottle, little beads of condensation swaying down the sides. “They all sound true,” she said, looking at Peter for confirmation.

“I do remember hearing something from Interpol about a yacht rented to a Nick Halden going down off the coast of St. Tropez in perfect weather,” Peter said, not really looking at Neal.

Neal didn't react, expression impassive even though the memory of Alex taking a sledge hammer to the side of a banker's yacht in nothing but a bikini and a captain's hat was one he would forever enjoy.

Siobhan was staring at Neal intently, jaw set in concentration. He narrowed his eyes. “You’re not putting a hex on me, are you?”

She laughed. “I’m trying to figure out your tell.”

“Neal doesn’t have any tells.” Peter leant back out of the sun, shade falling across his face in heavy bands. “That’s what makes him such a good con man.” His tone was neutral, conversational, as though he were telling her an interesting fact he'd read somewhere about a rare wild animal.

“It’s also what makes me a damn good consultant.”

There was a pregnant pause, but it was fleeting, going unnoticed by the others. Peter laughed, although it sounded hollow. “I never said _damn_ good.”

Neal smiled to cover his uncertainty. The breeze coming off the lake was picking up, small gusts that sent dead leaves skidding and scratching across the ground. Birds chattered as they took flight over the water.

“I’m gonna say Borneo is the lie.” Diana said, after a moment.

“Nope.”

“Seriously?” Diana, looked sceptical. “What were you doing in Borneo?” She held up a hand. “And by that I mean, what were you trying to steal?”

“Nothing. What?” Neal said, as the group looked at him disbelievingly. “Mozzie wanted to see the orangutans.”

“Okay!” Dave stood up and clapped to get everyone’s attention before they could get any further. “Now that we’ve broken the ice, we’re going to move onto one of my favourite activities, The Thankfulness Tree!”

Neal closed his eyes and sent out a silent plea for strength. Beside him, he heard Diana mutter a quiet _Oh God_.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

The next few days passed unremarkably enough, filled with a variety of contrived activities: word games, ice-breakers, trust exercises. They built rafts out of found objects to race across the lake (or not - Neal had spent thirty fruitless minutes scouring the bottom of the lake for Jones’ watch, lost in the rush to abandon ship); they ran relays and and hiked through the foothills and valleys for hours on end. There was nothing particularly challenging about any of it - Neal was one of the youngest and by far the fittest of the group - but the normalcy, the conventionality of it all grated on him. He never had liked blending into the crowd. More than that, it was fraternal, familial, a kind of group setting that, without the distance of an alias, put him completely on edge. It got under his skin, made him feel confined and restless in a way he couldn't quite make sense of. Still, he tolerated it, acutely aware of his every action being scrutinised, not just by Peter, but the other agents as well. They were mostly friendly, inclusive, happy to be paired up with him for an activity or spend time shooting the breeze - about old cases, bureau politics, or some of his more extravagant alleged exploits. _Is it true that_... _Someone told me you and Burke once_... But they still held him at arm’s length, nervous, Neal supposed, of being the one to fall asleep at their post.

Gradually though, Neal fell into a rhythm. The rota divided them all up into groups, alternating what few daily chores there were between them. But despite this, Neal had become the go-to advisor in the kitchen, after he’d conjured up _coq au vin_ one evening from a kitchen mostly stocked with beer and potato chips. His team - Jones, Chris and a couple of other agents - would fall back and let him cook, and when it wasn't their night Neal would always end up being pulled in to help. He enjoyed cooking, so he didn't mind. Plus, it was a good way to fall into people's favour. It also meant he had an excuse to go on grocery runs to the nearest town more often, which was an opportunity to buy decent wine and poke around a handful of stores on Main Street, including a promising looking antique store that Bancroft or whoever he happened to be with would always steer him away from.

The hot weather continued unabated and Neal took advantage of any downtime to swim and lay out in the sun with a book, enjoying the murmuration of the birds and cicadas and the feel of dirt and sand underfoot. His skin was tanning quickly, as it always did, freckles spreading across his shoulders and forearms; every evening he stepped into the bathroom to find his hair a fraction lighter than it had been before, eyes bright and clear. He knew he should feel healthy, refreshed, but sleep was still largely evading him. He drifted off on the couch each night, waking after only a couple of hours to the flickering of the TV screen, the world impossibly quiet and the sky outside a deafening black. For the first time in years he dreamt about his mother, searching for her in vast, vacant airport terminals or bus stations in strange cities they had never once been in together. Homeless, as they had often been, the sense of transience pushed through the dreams with startling clarity. Sometimes, he saw a figure he knew was his father but his face was always obscured, blocked out by a too bright light or the darkness of a shadowy room, and always, it seemed, in the act of turning away. When Neal woke, his body would be wound tight, muscles tensed as though braced for some kind of unseen impact.

On the sixth day, the day of the challenge, a storm rolled in during the night, wind howling through the trees, throwing the rain into wild drifts that hit the windows like hails of bullets. Neal lay awake in the darkness, listening to a neighbour's awning snap and clink. The light was still grey at 6am, clouds low and tenebrous over the mountains, but the worst of it had clearly passed. After breakfast, they all drove out to the Clearlake trailhead a few miles north east and gathered in the empty parking lot.

Bancroft and Sanderson, who were officiating the challenge, handed out maps and the first clue in a sealed envelope. From what Neal could gather, the aim was to solve clues along the trail in order to find directions to a gold coin hidden somewhere on the mountainside, then make it back down to the trailhead before anyone else.

“All right, listen up!” Sanderson said, clapping his hands to get everyone’s attention. He was ex-army and had an unyielding, bruising quality. “Berrigan, you’re paired with Robson - ”

“So, what do we actually win?” Neal whispered to Jones.

Jones looked at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Pride, man. _Pride_ ,” he said, breaking into a laugh. “You get a case of beer and the opportunity to design next year’s puzzle.”

Neal sighed. “Not even a trophy or - ?”

“Look, hey, if you win, I’ll make you a trophy. Whittle it out of wood - ”

“I appreciate that, man. I do. I do,” Neal said, with exaggerated sincerity.

“Caffrey!” Sanderson called. “You’re with Burke - for obvious reasons,” he added, before Neal could say anything.

“Jones, you’re with Davis - ”

“I thought we were supposed to work with different people,” Neal said, catching up with Peter once everyone had dispersed. He was standing by his open car trunk, double checking the contents of his backpack.

“That applies to agents.” Peter clicked the straps of his bag shut, pulling them tight, and slipped it onto his shoulders. He snagged a Nalgene bottle from the trunk and handed it to Neal; it was full and cold. “It’s not going to be a problem, is it?” Peter said, turing to face him. There was nothing confrontational in his tone, but the implication was there none the less.

Neal shrugged and held up the clue card he’d been holding. “This is what we do, right?”

“Everyone ready?” Bancroft called, looking around to check each pair was together. He had the same giddy look Peter so often did when confronted with a puzzle and Neal wondered if this was some kind of trait the bureau actively screened for. “Okay! Open your clues in 3...2...1!” Sanderson blew the starting whistle and Neal tore open the envelope.

_Don’t be last, your friends and your reflection. It’s all direction now._

“Huh, never had Bancroft down as a Bowie fan,” Neal said, handing the card to Peter. “They’re lyrics,” he added, when Peter looked blank.

Peter unfolded the map they’d been given, spreading it out across the side of his car. “Well, it’s got to point to something on here,” he said, waving his hand over a vast area of green and brown. “There,” he said, after a moment or two of searching. “Mirror Lake, that’s about two miles up the trail from here.”

“Isn’t that a little obvious?” Neal said, wrinkling his nose and leaning in closer to scan the map. A number of groups were already starting off up the trail, clearly having made the same connection. The breeze ruffled the map, corners flapping. Peter moved his hand to smooth them down and as he did, Neal noticed it: a faint, broken brown line that ran parallel with the main trail, separated by a distance of only a couple of miles, before they merged together high up near the peak. Neal grinned. “Your friends and your reflection.”

 

*

 

The side trail, when they found it, was clear and well defined, but quickly grew steep, zig-zagging up the mountainside with sharp slopes falling away below. The density of the trees made it impossible to see far ahead or gain any sense the how far the trail had climbed, but it was clear they were alone; the ground, still wet in places from the earlier rainstorm, was unmarked by footprints other than their own. Neal quickly pulled away from Peter as they walked; it had been so long since he’d been free to just move forward and cover ground unthinkingly that he was almost unable to pace himself and stay in Peter’s line of sight.

The sun burnt away the last of the clouds, the light slanting through the trees in wide, golden spokes. The air was fresher now, the storm having swept away the humidity of the last few days, though the temperature was steadily rising and Neal could feel his t-shirt sticking to his back. They found clues as they went, looking out for various landmarks or objects depending on their answer. The trail continued to climb higher, twisting into narrow switchbacks, uneven with rocks and tree roots. They didn’t pass any other hikers or see anyone from the bureau, though very occasionally Neal thought he could hear distant voices somewhere below them.

After a couple of hours, Neal heard Peter call his name and he backtracked, scrambling down the steeper sections, to find him emerging back onto the trail from the woods holding another white card.

“They’re hanging from the tree over there.” Peter wiped the sweat from his brow and gestured behind him to a little clearing. “If the sun hadn’t been at just the right angle, I doubt I’d have spotted them."

It was a photo, half out of focus, a green, pixelated background with the corner of a wooden building of some kind curving through the frame. It didn’t look like anything they’d seen so far on the way up. Neal made his way over to the tree where a dozen or so more envelopes were hanging from the branches, twirling on pieces of red string.

“What are you doing?” Peter said, following him.

“Taking them down?” Neal reached up, but Peter caught his arm.

“No, we’re not cheating.”

“I’m just improving our odds,” Neal countered.

Peter let out a sharp, agitated breath, the muscle in his jaw tensing. He pulled Neal back onto the trail and let him go. “You’re always looking for a short cut, aren’t you? A way to tip things in your favour.”

“Isn’t everyone?” Neal said, coolly. Peter just shook his head and continued back up the trail. Neal stood still, only then realising that his heart was pounding, his breathing quick with anger. He started after Peter before he could stop himself, wading into the argument that had been silently running in the background all along. “You know what?” he said, his voice too loud. “You think you’re above everything, that your badge somehow makes your actions inherently right, but the truth is, most of the time there’s a hair’s breadth between your actions and mine.”

Peter stopped short, turning to face him. “Oh, I think there’s a world of difference,” he bit out. “I asked you, I _trusted_ you to make the right decisions, to let the truth be found in the system. Instead, you corrupted it.”

“The system _is_ corrupt.”

“Only because people like you corrupt it,” Peter said, raising his voice to speak over him. “I was innocent and you made me guilty.”

“You were about to be indicted, Peter. It didn’t matter that you were innocent. You protect the people you care about in the ways you know how.”

“You did it to protect yourself.” Peter’s words were full of disdain.

Neal’s throat tightened. “That’s not fair.” He wondered what Peter would say if he knew Elizabeth’s part in all of this. So many times he’d thought about throwing that grenade. _Did you know she told me to do whatever it took, then washed her hands of it all? Did you know?_ But he could never bring himself to do it; he didn’t want to do it. “You think I gave a damn about my deal after what James did? I can always run. _You can't_." Neal took a breath, trying to regain his composure. "The end should always justify the means. It was worth it.”

“I think you’ve got that twisted.” Peter shook his head. “I’ve let you get away with far too much.”

“No, you condoned the things I did because it put your closure rate in the low nineties. Now you get a big promotion and, what, suddenly you’re above it all?”

“It’s not that same and you know it.” Peter’s voice was low, each word heavy. “There’s a vast difference between applying the law and manipulating it.”

“You’re kidding yourself,” Neal said, though it felt more like a plea than a reproach.

“I mean, what did you think was going to happen, Neal?" Peter said, as if Neal hadn't even spoken. "Did you think I’d be grateful? Or did you just hope that I’d never find out?”

“I thought you’d understand.” Neal wiped the sweat out of his eyes. The air felt too thin. “If I could go back, do it all over again, I would make that bribe in a heartbeat.” He’d make the deal, too, though the weight of that burden in the face of Peter’s animosity was still hard to bear. “I was _scared_ , Peter.”

Peter looked at Neal sharply, his whole body stilling, and Neal was sure he could see the briefest flash of surprise in his expression. For a moment, neither of them spoke. A plane drew a thin white line through the deep sky above. Birds fluttered and rustled in the trees. The silence between them was deafening.

“We need to get going,” Peter said, finally, voice rough. But he didn’t move.

Neal smiled contemptuously. “Screw you, Peter.” He turned, heading blindly back down the trail. His ears were buzzing, his vision clouded. He felt claustrophobic, the trees pressing in on him, blocking out the light and trapping the heat. He was distantly aware of Peter calling after him, stiffly, at first, then with a greater sense of urgency. Neal hesitated, stopping at the corner of the switchback they had clambered up only a short time before. He turned to look back to where Peter was stood, but before either of them could speak the ground beneath Neal's feet crumpled and he stepped backwards into thin air.

Neal gave a surprised shout as he plunged down the face of the ridge, scrabbling for purchase in the dirt as he tried to stop himself from tumbling head over heels in the blur of earth and rocks and tree branches. His hand hit a tree root and he grabbed it, striking out with his feet in an attempt to catch himself, but his right leg caught awkwardly in the rocks and he came to an abrupt halt, his ankle taking nearly all of his weight and momentum with a sharp, bruising force. Neal stifled a cry, almost losing his grip from the shock.

“Neal!”

There was silence, then he could hear the crunch of Peter’s shoes as he appeared through the cloud of dust and debris, crouching down on the trail high above him. He looked shaken, but he had his steady, take-charge bureau voice. “You all right?”

Neal nodded, breathing hard, heart pounding. His ankle was tingling, but he hadn’t heard anything crack. He looked down, still gripping the tree root tightly, not quite daring to move; there were shards of black plastic scattered across the ground. He shifted his position slightly but there still wasn't any pain.

Peter scrambled down until Neal was able to reach up and grab his hand, and it was only then that he realised his palms were torn and dusty. Peter, bearing most of Neal's weight, slowly pulled him back up over the jagged shoulder of the ridge until they both collapsed in a heap on the trail. Neal rolled up his pants leg and looked numbly at the blood that was streaming from a deep, open cut down the side of his shin. There were scrapes and bruises all over his legs and knees. The casing of his tracker was badly damaged, though the little green light was almost sarcastically steady.

Peter kneeled down in front of him, face lined with concern. “You think you’ve broken anything?”

Neal shook his head, wincing as he shifted further back onto the safety of the path. "I'm not sure."  

"Are you hurt anywhere else? Did you hit your head?" Peter asked, checking him over with a critical gaze. 

"No - I don't think so." 

Peter reached forward and removed the tracker in one quick motion, leaving an indentation in Neal's skin where his ankle had already started to swell under it. “Don’t,” Peter said, as Neal leaned forward to pull off his shoe. “Just untie the laces.” He carefully lifted Neal's leg onto his knee and kept hold of it with one hand while rummaging in his backpack with the other, finally producing a small first aid kit. He made short work of rinsing out the cuts and grazes with bottled water and tightly bandaging Neal's leg and palms, hands never tentative or faltering after years of first aid courses and bureau drills. The adrenaline in Neal's system was quickly subsiding and a biting, aching pain had spread across the inside of his ankle. Neal dug his fingers into his thigh as Peter worked, all his concentration focused on not flinching away. He bled through the first set of bandages Peter applied to his leg and even when Peter added several more layers there were still blotches of red across the white.

When he’d done all he could, Peter wiped his hands on his pants and snagged the map from his back pocket before dropping down to sit next to Neal. He spread the map out on the ground and began pouring over it, presumably to confirm just how screwed they actually were.

Neal ran a hand across his eyes. He was shaky from the adrenaline come down and the pain in his ankle was making him nauseous. He took a careful drink of water before using his good foot to kick dirt over the pools of blood he’d left on the ground. It was then, out of the corner of his eye that he saw it; a dilapidated wooden structure, further up the trail where it swept around in a wide 'U'. Quickly, he pulled the now crumpled photo clue from his pocket, holding it outstretched. “Peter - ”

Peter looked up, eyes brightening as he followed Neal’s gaze. “That must be where the coin is hidden,” he said.

“Well, there’s not much mountain left. Go,” he said, when Peter looked hesitant, “I’m not exactly going anywhere in a hurry.”

Leaving Neal where he was, Peter jogged off up the trail. Ten minutes later he returned, a glinting gold coin between his fingers.

Neal smiled. “I guess we win.”

 

*

 

Peter had no idea how Neal had made it back down to the base of the valley. They’d found a shortcut of sorts - a trail running down the sharper side of the peak towards the highway, which they were then able to follow back to the trailhead - but it was still well over an hour of walking in the heat, over steep, uneven terrain. The tension between them remained, if subdued, and Neal had mostly refused his help, aside from a steadying hand coming down the more difficult sections. He was limping badly, clearly in pain, but was at least able to put some weight on his foot. Bancroft and Sanderson (whose faces when he and Neal turned up covered in dust and blood, just as the Marshals came tearing into the parking lot, would have been hysterical on any other day) had sat Neal down on the back of their car, persuading him to go to the hospital with surprising gentleness.

It wasn’t until Peter was sat in the cool, chemical air of the emergency room, Neal being X-rayed somewhere in the depths of the building that he was able to take a deep, cleansing breath. A glance at the clock told him they’d been out on the trail for a little over six hours, but it all felt like an overheated blur. He drained two cups of metallic tasting water from the dispenser in the corner and sat back in his chair rubbing his neck tiredly. The waiting area was empty, the small, local department feeling strangely vacant and unused. Artificial plants, stacks of out of date magazines, pristine grey linoleum. Neal’s boots lay discarded on the floor of the curtained bay across the hall, scuffed and dirty.

He shouldn’t have let Neal get to him. He had tried so desperately to put an objective, professional space between himself and Neal since everything fell apart a little under two weeks ago, terrified of how out of control his life had become, as though Kramer's prophecies were all coming true. Mistakenly, he’d believed that he could reign Neal in, if he was hard enough on him, took a firmer line. But he’d undermined himself, pushing Neal away and at the same time, testing him, provoking him, hoping that somehow things would either fall into place or fall apart and then at least they’d finally know, one way or the other. He'd been watching Neal like a hawk and all the while holding him at a distance, so unsure of the right thing to do for either of them. It reminded him of the days leading up to Neal’s release, the atmosphere of apprehension and anticipation in the bureau, no one entirely sure what to expect from the man in the case files. Endless meetings, security codes on high rotation, files moved, cameras angled a little more carefully. _Batten down the hatches_ , Hughes had said, eying the chaos from his office with a discerning gaze. _I hope you know what you’re doing, Peter._ Careful, _careful_. And then Neal had walked in like it was the most ordinary thing in the world, like he’d been stepping off that elevator every day for the past ten years. And everything changed.

The decision to keep quiet about the bribe and the false evidence was on him, but he still hadn’t made peace with it. Perhaps he never would. It was the kind of compromise he never once thought he’d be forced to make and never that Neal would be the one to make him do it. Still, he struggled with a constant push and pull, his anger towards Neal competing fiercely with his desire to protect him - from the bureau, from himself, from whatever else he was clearly mixed up in, and Peter had no doubt that this was bigger than a few Welsh gold coins and a dirty judge. Neal was a storm always on the verge of breaking. His capacity for destruction was only rivalled by his ability to create, and Peter felt sure they had yet to see which would win out.

Eventually, Neal was brought back to the treatment bay, his ankle deemed to be badly sprained. Peter sat with him while his leg was numbed, cleaned and stitched, before being wrapped in a thick bandage and support brace. The gas and air the doctors were giving him was making him groggy and listless, completely unperturbed by the activity around him. After a tetanus shot for good measure, Neal was finally released into Peter’s care with a bottle of codeine and bag full of gauze. Peter steadied a newly alert and irritable Neal to the car and threw his crutches into the trunk along with his shoes, already knowing it was a foregone conclusion that he wouldn’t be using them.

The sun was setting by the time they pulled into the driveway of the house, the light mild and aurulent. They could hear everyone out on the terrace - voices and laughter drifting over with the smell of the barbecue - and as Peter and Neal walked around from the driveway they all let out a cheer, like someone had dropped a glass in a crowded restaurant. Despite his obvious exhaustion, Neal rallied a smile from somewhere.

“The Salmon Run claims another victim,” Jones announced, clapping Neal on his shoulder as he eased himself down into a chair.

“You hungry, son?” Bancroft asked, already loading up a plate - hamburger, salad, potatoes - and placing it in front of Neal. The barbecue was dying out but still smoking, little pieces of ash tumbling upwards in the heat. Mosquito candles had been lit, the sharp scent of citronella rolling across the table in heady waves.

“So, what happened?” Diana asked, uncapping her bottle of beer with a clink. “Sanderson told us Neal had busted his ankle, but you both look like crap - no offence.”

Peter laughed and ran a hand over his face. “ _Neal_ \- ” he said, deflecting the question, as he gratefully accepted the cold beer Pérez passed across to him.

“I think the better question is what happened to you?” Neal said, somehow managing to sound contrary, despite the deep exhaustion in his voice. His hair was sticking up at the back slightly, from the sweat and heat and lying on a gurney for so long. “We were on the right trail at least.”

“To be fair, most of them got onto the right trail, _eventually_ ,” Bancroft said, looking a little too pleased with himself, eliciting a groan of complaint from the group.

Jones handed Peter the salad. “Yeah, just after miles and miles of backtracking,” he said, flatly. “Oh, which reminds me - ” He reached under the table and pulled out what looked to be a stubby piece driftwood with a pine cone glued to one end. “I promised Caffrey a trophy if he won - ”

“Wow, I - have no words,” Neal said, as Jones set it down on the table next to him, the pine cone listing dangerously to one side. “It looks almost as bad as I feel.”

“Yeah, it’s, uh, a work in progress,” Jones laughed.

“They tell you how long you’ll have to wear that thing?” Chris asked from where he was sat at the far end of the table, nodding to the blue support brace on Neal’s ankle.

“Uh, a week maybe?” Neal said, stretching out his leg and looking at it as though it would tell him the answer. He was still groggy, whether from tiredness or something they’d given him at the hospital, Peter wasn’t entirely sure.

“More like four," Peter interjected, gently.  "Cut his leg up pretty good as well. Twelve stitches and - ” He fished Neal’s battered tracker from where it had been forgotten in his pocket, “ - one severely traumatised tracking anklet.”

Diana whistled, picking up the tracker. “So, the Great Neal Caffrey is human after all,” she said, sounding halfway between sympathetic and impressed.

A short time after, Peter shadowed Neal into the house, which felt stuffy and overly warm after the chill of the evening air, steering him away from the stairs and towards his own bedroom at the front. It was as though he was on autopilot, taking care of Neal from muscle memory more than any sense of obligation. He waited for Neal to shower, then once he was settled in bed - quiet, already half asleep - he stacked a few spare pillows and an ice pack under his injured leg. As he flipped off the light and turned to close the door, Peter could see Neal was watching him through half-lidded eyes, his expression murky and guarded despite his drowsy state. Later, when Peter finally crawled into Neal’s bed upstairs, he found the sheets crisp and untouched, as though Neal had never been there at all.

 

*

 

“You can tell me, y’know,” Diana said, stirring sugar into her coffee as they lingered over breakfast outside the next morning. The sound of laughter and clattering dishes drifted over from the kitchen behind them.

Peter snapped out of his reverie. “Tell you what?”

“If you - ” she made a nudging gesture with her arm, “- pushed him. Caffrey, I mean. Because God knows, Peter, I think most of us would have been tempted. ”

Peter let out a surprised snort of laughter, the first that felt genuine in what seemed like an eternity. “So all these team bonding exercises have been time well spent, I see?”

Diana raised a wry eyebrow, a blob of jam falling from the tip of her knife. “I’m saying nothing. But,” she said, sobering a little. She looked fresh faced, relaxed, like Peter was sure he was supposed to feel. “Clearly there's something going on between you two.”

Peter ran his teeth over his bottom lip and shrugged. “We’re...at odds.” He huffed. “What’s new?”

"Not much," she said, leaning back in her chair. "But you two always get over it."

"Honestly, this time I don't know if we will." Peter shook his head. "It's - well, it's complicated. _More_ complicated than usual," he added, when Diana gave him a look. "I don't know. We're forever taking one step forward and two steps back. Just as soon as I think we're making progress - _boom_ \- " Peter said, silently imitating an explosion with his hands. "Neal - he has so many complexities and contradictions, I never really know where we stand."

"You have a few yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"Look at the way you handle Neal. Straight-laced Peter Burke, bending the rules, allowing himself to be pulled into the grey area. _The_ _Archaeologist_ turning a blind eye."

"That's - "

"What Neal does?" Diana looked at him, gaze steady, not an ounce of judgement. "He draws everyone into his world, convinces them to invest, muddying the waters so you can't see what's right in front of you. It's how he survives."

It was true, of course, but Peter had long ago stopped thinking of it in quite the same way. All the people in Neal's life who should have been kind to him weren't; all his closest, most trusted relationships came with huge caveats, were tenuous, disposable by their very nature. No ties, no roots, no history, no safety. Everything a means to an end. There had always been something about Neal's life, all the things Peter knew and all the many things he didn't, that unsettled him, that made it impossible for him to walk away even when he knew he should.

"I get it, you know," Diana shrugged. "These past couple of years, we've all seen different sides to him. I don't think he's a bad person or even necessarily that he always has bad intensions. It's just - I don't know - there's always something else going on beneath the surface, _always_ , and I'm not sure he knows how to be any different."

"I know," Peter said, simply. It was what scared him too. 

Diana nodded and smiled, though Peter could see the sincerity all the same. “If you ever need anything - ”

“You’ll be the first one I call to put Caffrey in his place, I promise. You should hang that on your Thankfulness Tree,” he added, punctuating the sentence with a jab of his tea spoon.

“Oh, don’t even!”

 *

Neal emerged late that morning, just as Peter was making a failed attempt to fix his anklet with electrical tape, hoping to smooth over the rough edges enough so as to make it wearable until they were back in the city. Neal gave Peter a sideways look and disappeared off across the terrace, clearly hoping to avoid that fate for as long as possible.

It was quiet; no one felt like doing anything much after the hike the day before, content to swim in the lake or throw a football around by the water’s edge. Peter tried to relax, taking his book and a beer to a shady spot beside the house. But after a couple of hours he couldn’t remember a single thing he’d read, his mind completely unable to focus. His anger had burnt itself out, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, somewhere between seeing something that looked a lot like truth in Neal's eyes and pulling him out of the dust. But without anger there was nothing left but a bone-deep sense of anxiety. It was as though a bomb had gone off somewhere in the distance and he and Neal were sitting in that slipstream space between sound and force, waiting for the impact. Life with Neal was like that, Peter had come to realise. There was something inherently fated about him, as though he was subject to some inexplicable inertia. 

Neal made himself scarce for most of the day, sitting on a lounger in the shady part of the deck out by the lake, leg propped up on a cushion, a glass of white wine standing in a pool of condensation on the ground beside him. He looked perfectly composed, his shorts (which were far shorter and brighter than Peter would ever wear), striped t-shirt and Tom Ford sunglasses giving him the air of a playboy convalescing at the Palazzo Sasso, or a film star parachuted in from Cannes. It always shook Peter how Neal could be at once entirely in his element and so completely out of place. He had flashes of it whenever Neal was at their dining room table, patiently listening to him and Elizabeth chatter about gutter repairs or neighbourhood politics, and all of a sudden he would think: y _ou robbed a bank. Y_ _ou’ve broken into museums in the dead of night. You’ve stolen billions of dollars worth of art. You're a criminal. You shouldn't be here._  Or out of the corner of his eye - Neal in his slim black suit, his hat at an angle, peering at a vase or a family photograph on the fireplace mantel - like some exotic, dangerous creature, out of time and out of place in Peter’s ordinary living room. 

Sometime in the late afternoon, people drifted inside to shower and change, eventually heading out for a wander around town. The heat was stagnant, barely a breeze coming off the lake. Grabbing a couple of bottles of water, Peter made his way down the steps to the deck. Neal cracked one eye open as Peter’s shadow crossed over his face, looking up at him warily. “You’re not going to try and put that tracker back on me are you? Because I think that would constitute cruel and unusual.” He pushed his sunglasses off and shifted up in his seat with a wince that was more theatrical than genuine.

Peter sat down on the edge of the lounger next to Neal’s, placing the water bottles on the ground. “You gonna run?”

Neal looked at him quizzically. “Have you seen my leg recently, Peter?”

“I don’t think that would stop you. I seem to remember a particular incident in Montevideo, ‘05 or ‘06?”

Neal looked at him with a blank, guileless expression. “Montevideo - ?”

“Not ringing a bell, I suppose?” Peter said, knowingly.

"Is that why you brought me out here?" Neal shrugged and reached down to pick up his wine glass, wiping off the drips of condensation with a flick of his fingers.

"What? So you could run?"

"To see if I would."

"No," Peter said, though they both knew that wasn't the whole truth. Neal smiled, teeth glinting in the sun. Out on the lake, a small motorboat was curving through the water, it’s engine revving, then dying off as it turned. Small waves crashed into the shoreline, churning over the rocks under the deck.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about Summers,” Neal said, after a long beat of silence. He took a sip of his wine and set the glass down.

Peter turned back to look at him. “Summers? The psychologist?”

“I get it. I know we’re wired differently - ” Neal trailed off, as Peter fumbled, trying to understand. The whine of the boat climbed a pitch as it crossed the near side of the lake. Peter leaned away from it. “We come at things from completely different angles, but I thought at the very least that we had each other’s backs. I had yours. I did the right thing.”

“You did the wrong thing for the right reasons, Neal,” Peter said, gently. “There’s a difference.”

“Yeah, there is - in a just world, but we don’t live in a just world. If you had been indicted, or convicted, sat in a jail cell for ten, twenty years next to guys who have never had one kind, selfless thought in their lives, what good would that have done? What possible good could have come from that?”

“Don’t you ever think the same thing about yourself?” Peter said, before he could stop himself.

There was a glaring silence. Neal's eyes were sharp. “That’s not fair.”

“Isn't it? I’ve got your back, you know that. But I can’t protect you from yourself. I won’t stand by and watch you get sent back to prison, especially not for something so stupid - ”

“That won’t happen.” Neal's expression was pensive, stormy. “I just want - ” his shoulders sagged minutely, his arms by his sides, palms open, and for a disconcerting second Peter thought he could see a glimpse of Neal with no walls, no artifice. He'd had that sensation only a couple of times in all the time he'd known Neal, all swirling chaos and disquiet. 

“You want what, Neal?” Peter said, but Neal shook his head and looked away, eyes narrowing against the sun. “We can find a way to work past this,” Peter offered.

“No,” Neal said, not looking at him. “We can’t.” And in an instant Peter realised he was right. That this was the very heart of their problem; they were who they were. It was why they worked so well together and why there would always be a little fault line running through all of it. Perhaps it didn’t matter, Peter thought. Perhaps at the heart of every good thing was a little speck of decay, like some kind of cosmic trade off; everything that flowers must sink back into the earth.

Peter looked at Neal’s profile, silhouetted against the sunlight. “Promise me that you'll come to me the next time things go bad?”

Neal didn't move. “I can’t make those kind of promises, Peter.”

“Promise me,” he said, again.

But Neal couldn’t.

 

 

*

_End._

 


End file.
